Carlo M Croce

Education and career

Croce was born on December 17, 1944, in Milan, Italy, to a housewife and a mechanical engineer. At age 2, he moved to Rome with his family. In 1963, he entered the school of medicine of La Sapienza University of Rome and graduated in 1969 summa cum laude in medicine and Latin.

He began his career in the United States the following year as an associate scientist at the Wistar Institute of Biology and Anatomy in Philadelphia. In 1980, he was named Wistar Professor of Genetics at the University of Pennsylvania and associate director of the Wistar Institute, titles he held until 1988. He was at Wistar from 18 years. From 1988-91, he was director of the Fels Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Biology at Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia. Croce rapidly expanded the faculty and staff and launched a PhD programme in genetics, but said he was not given enough support and space by Temple.

In 1991, Croce was named Director of the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson Medical College at the Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. In a controversial move, he took with him most of the PIs and over 200 staff from the Fels Institute. While at Jefferson, he discovered in 2002 the role of microRNAs in cancer pathogenesis and progression, implicating a new class of genes in cancer causation - he found that loss of two miRNAs that target BCL2 caused chronic lymphocytic leukemia in mice. While at Jefferson, federal investigators alleged Croce and a colleague had submitted false claims for research never undertaken. The university settled the allegations, paying $2.6 million to the government without admitting any wrongdoing.

In 1994, Croce joined the Council for Tobacco Research’s scientific advisory board, were he remained until the group closed after the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. During that time, tobacco companies used Croce’s research into fragile histidine triad (FHIT) to argue that lung cancer was an inherited condition. However this is in contrast with previous published work from Croce and collaborators that stated, since 1997, that FHIT gene was lost as a direct consequence of smoking cigarettes

In 2004, Croce moved to Ohio State University, where he had been an external advisor since 1988, receiving a salary of $475,000 and taking with him over 100 staff. Under his direction, the faculty within the Human Cancer Genetics Program conduct both clinical and basic research. Basic research projects focus on how genes are activated and inactivated, how cell-growth signals are transmitted and regulated within cells, and how cells interact with the immune system. Clinical research focuses on discovering genes linked to cancer and mutations that predispose people to cancer.

In 2013, Croce resigned from the Ri.MED Foundation's scientific committee due to its director's support for the controversial Stamina therapy.

Croce has received over $86 million in federal grants as a principle investigator, with $29.1 million received since he joined Ohio State.

Investigations into scientific misconduct

Works by Croce are currently under scrutiny by the scientific community for possible misconduct and data manipulation. Since 2013, several scientists have made public claims of research misconduct, and more than twenty corrections and retractions have been issued on research he has published. These allegations are being investigated by the federal Office of Research Integrity (ORI). Ohio State had previously mismanaged investigations of scientific misconduct when Terry Elton was first cleared and later found guilty of fabricating data after the ORI rejected Ohio State’s initial investigation.

Members of the scientific community have pointed out the "tremendous conflict of interest" in the investigations by Ohio State University, as the funding awarded to Croce includes $8.7 million given directly to the university in overhead costs.

In addition to data falsification, Croce was found to have plagiarized a paper he published in PLoS One from six separate sources.

In 2007, Ohio State investigated Croce for misconduct after the National Institutes of Health (NIH) returned an application for funding that contained major portions identical to an application submitted months earlier by a junior colleague.

Ohio State cleared Croce of misconduct after accusations that he had patented a researcher’s work without providing credit and that members of his lab had used grant money for personal trips abroad, and improperly pressured for research attribution.

In 2013, Ohio State instructed him to make corrections and retractions after Clare Francis accused Croce of manipulating western blots in over 30 research papers. Clinical Cancer Research issued a correction in November 2015, after being contacted on the matter by a newspaper.

In 2014, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America dismissed a challenge that Croce’s 2005 paper on the WWOX gene it had published contained manipulated western blots, but in 2017, the journal agreed to correct the paper after consulting with experts interviewed by a newspaper.

In 2017, Cell Death and Differentiation retracted a paper Croce had published in 2010 after it was pointed out that images had been copied from a paper published in 2008 in PLoS One. In 2017, J Biol Chem retracted a paper Croce had published in 2008 after it was pointed out that errors had occurred in the construction of Figs. 1D, 3C, 5C, and 5H, and supplemental Fig. 1A.

On May 10, 2017, Croce filed a lawsuit against the New York Times and several of its writers and editors for defamation, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Personal life

Croce has said Columbus, Ohio lacks culture, motivating him to spend more of his time traveling than on campus. Croce privately collects Italian Renaissance and Baroque paintings, with an ability to identify and purchase genuine masters for a fraction of their worth. Croce lives in a large house in Upper Arlington, Ohio, where he keeps over 400 of his paintings in a 5,000 square foot wing under 21 foot ceilings. He is not a fan of the Ohio State Buckeyes and disdains local fans.

Discoveries and awards

As a researcher whose work has revealed cancer is the result of somatic genetic changes, he received the 30th Annual Jeffrey A. Gottlieb Memorial Award. He has discovered the juxtaposition of the human immunoglobulin genes to the MYC oncogene and the deregulation of MYC in Burkitt lymphoma; the MLL gene involved in acute leukemias; the TCL1A gene associated with T-cell leukemias; and cloned, named and characterized the BCL2 gene involved in follicular lymphoma. Croce has also uncovered the early events involved in the pathogenesis of lung, nasopharyngeal, head and neck, esophageal, gastrointestinal and breast cancers. In April 2017, Croce received the Margaret Foti Award from the AACR for Leadership and Extraordinary Achievements in Cancer Research.

Honors and awards